An organization called Medical Justice is encouraging doctors and dentists to …

Positive responses to negative feedback

So how should doctors respond when unfair criticism of their work appears online? Although federal privacy laws make it difficult for doctors to address individual patient complaints in a public forum, Schultz says nothing in federal law prevents doctors from talking generally about their practices and procedures. And Doctored Reviews notes that many patient complaints focus on non-confidential subjects such as "parking, wait times, and staff attitudes." Medical offices can respond to this type of complaint in the same way that any other business would.

Second, Schultz said, medical professionals can do more to engage with patients who have complaints. Most review sites allow businesses to send private messages to complaining customers. Doctors, or members of their staff, can use this mechanism to contact patients and provide additional information or explore ways to address the patient's concerns. In some circumstances, a disgruntled patient may be persuaded to update the review.

Yelp says it has never taken down a negative review in response to a Medical Justice-style copyright assignment.

Third, Schultz emphasized that consumers expect even the best business to have a few negative reviews. "When you have some negative reviews, it gives credibility to the site and to the positive reviews because it seems more balanced," he said. So doctors with dozens of positive reviews shouldn't sweat the occasional 1-star rating.

Most importantly, there's a great deal of room for innovation by review sites. Patients value fair and accurate reviews as much as doctors do. So review sites that do a better job of weeding out fraudulent reviews will be more trusted by consumers in the long run. For example, Schultz suggested that review sites could require patients to submit reviews under their real names, and actively investigate allegations of sock-puppetry. As the competition among review sites grows more intense, sites with higher-quality reviews will prosper.

Of course, there are some prejudicial statements that these kinds of private solutions can't fix. For example, Schultz acknowledged that they are unlikely to be an adequate response if someone writes a review accusing a doctor of child molestation. But, he said, the law already offers robust tools for dealing with those kinds of extreme scenarios.

A doctor facing a false accusation of that type can and should sue the accuser for defamation. A plaintiff can subpoena review sites and ISPs to unmask an anonymous poster's identity. Indeed, under those circumstances, a copyright assignment statement is likely to be wholly inadequate, not only because it's unlikely to get the review removed, but also because the doctor will want to actually win a defamation lawsuit in order to clear his name.

Conclusion

Dr. Cirka seems to have been engaging online in exactly the ways Schultz recommends. He's posted responses to the handful of low-ranking Yelp reviews of his services, encouraging patients to get in touch with him to resolve their concerns. And his website features extensive information about his services, policies, and staff.

Yelp says it has never taken down a negative review in response to a Medical Justice-style copyright assignment. So it's likely that Dr. Cirka's glowing 4-and-a-half star average rating on Yelp fairly represents his dental work. We can't rule out the possibility that his "privacy" agreement has caused self-censorship of dissatisfied patients, but we suspect he'd have an excellent Yelp ranking regardless.

Which means the person most harmed by Dr. Cirka's decision to adopt the Medical Justice copyright assignment is probably Dr. Cirka himself. I may be the first prospective patient he lost as a result of this agreement, but if the Medical Justice agreement continues generating bad press for him, I'm not likely to be the last.

We think the lessons here are pretty obvious. If you're a patient whose doctor or dentist asks you to sign a "mutual privacy agreement," find yourself a different doctor or dentist. And if you're a medical professional, please respect your patients' right to freedom of speech. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it's likely to be better for your bottom line in the long run.

Timothy B. Lee / Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times.